Gulnara

Gulnara is a delicious nature name that’s rare in North America, but widely used elsewhere.

I was lucky enough to visit Russia in 2011, when the borders were open. I camped with groups of Girl Scouts in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, republics that are nearer to Kazakhstan than to Moscow.

Culturally, I got the impression of a rich mixture of influences from Europe and Central Asia. Churches and mosques, European and Turkic languages, Soviet-era cars and statues of local freedom fighters.

This was, of course, reflected in people’s names. My ears were wide open.

Some of the Girl Scouts had your classic Russian names: multiple each of Anastasia, Natalia, Irina, Elena.

Other women and girls I met had names I’d never heard before in my narrow British life. The most common was Gulnara, and there were others with similar sounds like Gulnaz and Aigul.

They all share an element that comes from the Persian word gol, meaning “flower”, or sometimes specifically “rose”. They are used widely across Asia, from Russia to Turkey to India.

To anglo ears, Gulnara sounds unusual, but lyrical and clearly feminine. Nara, a short form which has roots in several cultures, has seen a little uptick in use in the US in recent years.